Pricing changes/updates as of July 1, 2019 (No, we aren't raising our prices)

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What is a "code 500 license"? I have never heard of it before. I did try to Google it, and if you are referring to reselling licenses, then that is not something you can do with DA licenses, they do not have a reseller program.

What is a "code 500 license"? I have never heard of it before. I did try to Google it, and if you are referring to reselling licenses, then that is not something you can do with DA licenses, they do not have a reseller program.

I am reseller of DA, Selling it to my customers and this option is available in my client area to buy this license.

The $299 lifetime is still being offered with "lifetime" longevity (it will never expire), and one year of support & updates. Optionally, you can pay a $99 fee to extend the support/updates for another year. If nothing is paid past the $299, the license will still stay active forever.

So, if I understand this correctly, in the future I'll have to pay for updates for new lifetime licenses? It's not that I don't want to pay for them, but it can become a large cost quickly I think... I currently have two licenses (but this was planned to become four in the near future). So this would mean it would cost me an additional 198 dollar per year just to keep the new licenses running on the latest version?

No issues with your annoucement, you took care to :
- talk with notice, and without final decision not negotiable
- not be greedy, and care of existing customers
- explain why some changes are necessary

I'm a new customer coming to you for many licenses, in coming months, and we prepare things.

I'm at OVH, and I can't buy anymore a monthly license for VPS being on IP failover, but for dedicated server yes.

Is this a technical issue at OVH, or there is a relation with your announcement ?

Does this mean, as a reseller, I'm only allowed to order monthly internal licenses now? I don't remember seeing this notice before....

I knew something like this announcement will come sooner than later, not that I'm surprised.

FWIW, I've removed selling cPanel licenses now.

Peter, can you contact us about this? Might be a problem with the new license throttling thing. It calculates orders by the average volume in the past year. It should only be 0 if you didn't do any ordering in the last year. As mentioned in the announcement, we are not instantly revoking new orders from existing customers.

My thoughts are this. I am a small business. I wouldn't even call me small medium..

I love the idea of a small limit license. The price has to be smail as well. I think allowing at least 6 accounts per licence would give you an advantage to selling more as both "Voldemort" and Plesk have 5. (had to use the Harry Potter reference, had to be first)

I like the idea of a DNS clustering or only licence as well. I would even pay a one time fee per license if it was a lifetime thing. Otherwise it fairly easy to set up "directslave"

I am not opposed to a support fee per year as long as it's optional and renewable at any time. If updates are going to be bound to it (which it dont think it should be). Security patches should alway be included. If you software has a bug or a issue that is not the License owners fault. In short we shouldn't have to pay for bad coding.

I also would like to thank openly @smtalk and @zetier for being ambassadors to the DA community. The community on the whole is awesome too. Which is something I prefer. If I can help you all in anyway going forward just add me to the list...

Before switching my all servers to DA, Can you answer this question?
1. What will be happened to DA VPS license after 1 September?
(I mean we can order VPS license - Internal license $14/mo and "Code 500 license" or not?

2. What is difference in $14/mo internal license and "Code 500 License"?

3. You said "All Internal license" will be removed from 1 September, If all internal license will be removed then only $29/mo and Lite plan will be available? I am correct?

Before switching my all servers to DA, Can you answer this question?
1. What will be happened to DA VPS license after 1 September?
(I mean we can order VPS license - Internal license $14/mo and "Code 500 license" or not?

2. What is difference in $14/mo internal license and "Code 500 License"?

3. You said "All Internal license" will be removed from 1 September, If all internal license will be removed then only $29/mo and Lite plan will be available? I am correct?

Please understand, this only applies to LIFETIME licenses. Any recurring/monthly license, internal or not, will remain unaffected.

2. For server providers, the difference is Code 500 is a lower priced option for VPS only. $14/mon license is for regular dedicated server installations.

3. Only lifetime, and only "removed" from ordering new ones. Existing licenses will not be touched.

More time

Last week we got surprised by Cpanel. We needed the weekend to digest that.

On Monday we started to inform and communicate with suppliers, other parties and off course customer, because you can't do nor change anything with their consent.

As we have this afternoon got consent of majority dedicated server/vps/shared hosting customer we wanted to order the licenses we needed.....

And we aren't able to.

We need more time to deal with the issues we have and while your future pricing are reasonable. (would like to see 50 USD per year for updates only)
At this moment we have other issues to deal with.

This announcement comes as a surprise and as you know that majority of CPANEL license payers don't have much choice.

On other fora your company was celebrated to be honest and ethical, even having "Protection against price increases" explicit on pricing page, this was quoted often.

But changing conditions and making total cost of ownership higher, suddenly makes me slightly insecure.

While being busy the complete weekend and on Monday and Tuesday with customer/partners to finally get green light (without impact due annual contracts etc..) from customers, we wouldn't expect to find this afternoon the message that you are going to change the conditions against we are able to use your solution.

It is already a large technical project to migrate everything from CPANEL, how to deal with ten thousands website, besides migrating data/database, the current zonefile without mutations and nameservers without downtime?

Personally feeling being cornered by cpanel, I would be willing to pay a premium if Directadmin had a hassle free drop in replacement at this moment, which without downtime could replace any cpanel server in 15 minutes.

After this storm, you can always higher your pricing as you will not have a real competitor anymore and no one with a clue would go for CPANEL anymore.
The annual recurring revenue is going to allow you to grow your business, because if it is worth it everyone would go for it.

The only question I have, how about security updates? Are they only included with updates or not? In the past I noticed that you didn;t use default RHEL/CENTOS RPM's so we couldn't rely in "instant" updates from them.

I am not sure how directadmin is handling things now, was going to order first (which I wasn't allowed) and start making an infrastructure and migration plan after.

ps: Can random question be replaced by Google Captcha? Those questions add to the frustration, puzzling before posting, while I am already puzzled by this situation.

No issues with your annoucement, you took care to :
- talk with notice, and without final decision not negotiable
- not be greedy, and care of existing customers
- explain why some changes are necessary

I'm a new customer coming to you for many licenses, in coming months, and we prepare things.

I'm at OVH, and I can't buy anymore a monthly license for VPS being on IP failover, but for dedicated server yes.

Is this a technical issue at OVH, or there is a relation with your announcement ?

Thanks

I can only order the bloody cPanel/Plesk licenses, whatever is billing cycle

Peter, can you contact us about this? Might be a problem with the new license throttling thing. It calculates orders by the average volume in the past year. It should only be 0 if you didn't do any ordering in the last year. As mentioned in the announcement, we are not instantly revoking new orders from existing customers.

Well, one server can be easily running a single Magento shop with 1000+ goods. Will you allow a Lite license here?

Another server can run 100+ domains under a single admin user. Will it be qualified for the same Lite license?

Sorry Alex, I edited your post completely by accident. I am putting in so much time that my head is spinning.

This is what we are still figuring out, and asking for feedback. The reason for the delay is that DA isn't setup for license limitations like this, so it will require a complete overhaul of our licensing system and lots of coding work. But it will allow us to do other things too, like a DNS only license (also in speculation stages only, don't hold us to this yet).

I'm still thinking that the only limited would be the domain/user count. It wouldn't be high, just enough for a personal/hobbyist/low-end user to enjoy a control panel that is affordable for a low cost server. So yes, I suppose powerhouse websites could be run on it.

It would not be appealing for shared hosts who have 20, 50, 100, 1000 websites. Commercial use would find the Lite limitations too inconvenient.

We mainly use the internal lifetime licenses for our vps clients, and bundle directadmin with the VPS directly without any additional costs. This will not be economically feasible for us if a VPS license is going to cost the same as a normal dedicated server license.

It would be great if there would be a lite license at a cheaper price focused on VPS servers. Maybe with a maximum RAM or users/domains limit?

Yes, we are planning a Lite internal as well, to help ease the adjustment. It's also the reason we are giving until Sept 1 to keep ordering the internal lifetimes. We realize that hosts are basing their plans/pricing on these licenses, so a shock event of suddenly removing them would be a very inconsiderate move on our part.

I'm bit confused , when i buy a LifeTime , license what is happening after 365 days?

1. Do i still get new DA updates ? or is it only for technical support?
Can you explain this in depth ?

2. I have older Lifetime license what is the difference between the old buyed one and the new one?

3. I have also an VPS with a Internal DA license from our provider, is this going to end then ?

1. The only lifetime left is our new $299 lifetime. It will never expire (you can always login and manage your server), but the software updates and support only last a year. You can add another year at any time, or just leave the license how it is. When you order, there is no renewal subscription you must be forced to enable.

2. Old lifetime license updates forever, with no more cost.

Old Lifetime: Expiry: Forever Updates: Forever
New Lifetime: Expiry: Forever Updates: 1 year, add more only if you want

3. We are not touching existing licenses. This whole announcement is our way of saying, new orders will be stopped. That's all.

x) As existing lifetime customer with 1 license, when I order now (before 1.sept) a 2nd lifetime license, will it be lifetime including upgrades?
x) And if yes, can i "horde" just this 1 additional lifetime-license for later use (maybe in 1 or 2 years)?

Until Sept 1, yes you can accumulate more licenses, within the limits of your typical buying history. Later use doesn't really matter, when someone buys a license, we don't watch to see when they begin using it.